Confirmation
by Red Masque
Summary: A Tak/Desperation story for those of you who have read Desperation and The Regulators. The title is just temporary; I can't think of a better one right now. Please Read and Review!
1. Prologue

From the Desperation Chronicles:  
  
"...Deep Earth Mining Company declined to name the injured worker, saying the family will be contacted. A thorough investigation is taking place now, trying to find the cause of the collapse. However, some more seasoned miners say freely that they believe the collapse in the China Pit was due to hitting the Rattlesnake Number One, a silver mine that collapsed in 1858, trapping many Chinese in the lower mine. If this is so, this could mean big profits for the Deep Earth headquarters in Phoenix, and even bigger profits for our own Desperation branch. However, views on finding the Rattlesnake Number One are mixed.  
  
"I don't much know why we just now hit the mine, but whatever's down there can't be good. We should let the dead rest," says Allen Synes, a prominent miner, one who has been in the company for the longest time. "Nothing good ever comes from finding collapsed mines. Sure, you might find some pretty rocks that'll bring you a good amount of lettuce, but what else you might find might cancel that luck out. Lots of folks died in that mine. I don't wanna be the next."  
  
On the flip side of that coin is the Deep Earth Mining Company's spokesman, Susan Gellar, who was quoted as saying..." 


	2. Chapter One

Tak.  
  
Seth Garin bolted upright in a cold sweat from the uneasy sleep he had been experiencing. He rubbed his ears. Had he just heard a child's voice speak? Deciding not, he lay back down and returned his mind to the dream he had awoken from. Someone had been telling him underground to never go to China when everything went a bright red. That's when the voice woke him. He didn't even know enough about the dream to know if he needed to be worried. For the past few months, in fact, since he turned thirteen, his dreams had seemed to forecast the coming day, which was strange enough, but always with stunning clarity. Seth could never remember exactly what his dreams had been until a few days ago. And what had the child's voice said? It was something like Dak or   
  
(tak)  
  
Dag or something like that. The voice had been cold, devoid of all emotion, like a voice of one who had just been told of a great tragedy and was in shock. Shaking his head to clear it and telling himself that it wasn't important,  
  
(it was, it was)  
  
Seth glanced at his clock. Three o'clock in the morning. God. Another four hours to feign sleep before another exiting day of the confirmation trip across the west. Today, they'd be crossing into... Nevada? He thought so. Anyway, he'd be snoring away in the bus and get in trouble with Ms. Wyler. He was sure of that. Seth knew he didn't have to worry about Professor Marinville. He was cool. Anyone would attest to that. And Mr. Carver would be too busy snoozing himself to be getting onto him.   
  
Seth began to drift off despite himself. As his eyes slid shut, he muttered something apparently nonsensical: "Can de lach. Mi him en tow... Can de lach... Tak..."  
Tak.  
  
Audrey Wyler sat on the edge of her bed, wondering which room to invade, telling the occupants to go to sleep. Was it that Garin child who woke her with that sharp syllable spoken at seemingly full volume? It wouldn't surprise her. Or maybe one of the Carver children. Many parents believed that going along with their children on trips makes them behave, but Audrey knew that it was exactly the opposite from experience both as an adult and as a child. It made them feel as if they had an obligation to their friends to show off how in control they were at their house, even if they weren't as in her case. Mr. and Mrs. Wyler had been harsh parents, real spare the rod, spoil the child, God fearing Baptist parents. Audrey knew looking back that this rearing was the reason she had turned out the way she was, whole in character and in judgment. She was no longer Baptist; she had switched to Episcopalism for a boyfriend in college. The boyfriend dumped her, and Audrey turned to the church for help rebuilding her life. One thing led to another, and she became the confirmation director at St. George's Episcopalian Church in Nashville.  
  
Tak. Can de lach.   
  
It had to be the Garin child. The sound was coming from the direction of his room-at three o'clock, that child should be asleep. No matter how old one was, they should be allowed some sleep at some time in the night. Audrey considered turning on her iPod, then realized that the reason she hadn't already was that she was charging it for the day ahead. Lord... how boring is it to go romping about in the deserts of Nevada? Hopefully, it won't be as barren as it was made out to be. Why had the former director established this trip to begin with? The mere thought of taking children, some not even into their teenage years, halfway across the country for a confirmation trip was mind-boggling.  
  
Can de lach.  
  
Okay, that's it, she thought. Garin, you're going down. I don't care if your parents are divorced, this is not something I will let slide. I need sleep. I have to monitor the children tomorrow for the poor bus driver's sake. They'll drive him insane! They'll... She yawned broadly. On second thought, she might be able to sleep after all. In fact... another yawn... I might not even be able to wake up by seven. But I don't care...   
  
Audrey Wyler fell asleep and spent the rest of the night in a peaceful, dreamless slumber.  
Johnny Marinville also sat on the edge of his cheap motel bed. He checked the atomic travel clock for the time: 2:58 A.M. Horrible. That bastard Carver had been keeping him up all night with his damn snoring. The dumbass had even taken some drops for it before going to sleep. A lot of good that did him.  
  
Tak.  
  
"Hmm?" Marinville turned to Ralph Carver's bed. The big man was asleep, and still snoring. It must have been the wind. There was supposed to be a big windstorm tomorrow. Johnny didn't know how smart it was to be in the middle of the desert during a sandstorm, but that was little Missy Wyler's call. Everything was.   
  
Mi him en tow.  
  
"What?" Johnny spun this time to see what Carver had to say. The man was still lying stoically at his side. Johnny put his head in his hands. It had sounded so much like the dying words of a man he'd known in Vietnam. The flashbacks had stopped years ago... could they be coming back?  
  
He realized a silence had come over the room. He turned once more to Carver's bed. The man was sitting up. "Did you hear it?" Carver asked.  
  
"Hear what?" asked Marinville in return. Of course he hadn't heard anything. Just the motel settling. It was an old wooden structure. It was probably prone to those types of noises.   
  
Carver looked around the room for a moment and settled on the wall behind his bed. "I think it came from there," he said.   
  
"You didn't hear anything," Johnny said. "Go back to sleep."  
  
Ralph Carver nodded his greying head slowly and settled it back on his pillow. Soon, his heavy snores were rattling the room again.   
  
Johnny Marinville settled his face into his weathered hands.   
  
Tak, tak, tak, tak-  
  
Was that gunfire he heard? Oh, this would be a long night for Prof. Johnny Marinville. 


	3. Chapter Two

"Ralph?"  
  
"Hmm? I mean, what is it Ms. Wyler?"  
  
"Ralph it's okay. Call me Audrey. But you really don't need to let Ellie be getting that Gulf shrimp for breakfast. We're nowhere near the Gulf."  
  
Ralph Carver slopped another spoonful of gravy onto his biscuits at the motel breakfast bar. "I really don't think it'll matter. They grow those shrimp right around here, in ponds, see? There's really not any reason not to let her get them."  
  
Audrey sighed in hopelessness and went to sit down next to Professor Marinville. "Good morning Johnny. That fool Carver is really getting on my nerves, what with those twins."  
  
"And why did he bring little David along too?" Johnny was gnawing at a rubbery egg. "Funny," he said to Audrey. "This looked real."  
  
Audrey barked a bit of laughter and had a bite of her apple, the only breakfast she was having. Nice fellow, that one, she thought.   
  
Johnny looked up at her from his breakfast. "But that man is really getting on my nerves," he breathed through his greying goatee. "He kept me up with his gawddamned snoring all night."  
  
Audrey looked a little reproachful at him for using the Lord's name in vain, but she could sympathize. "Yes, I had trouble getting to sleep last night as well. One of the kids was talkin up a storm last night and I was gonna go give him a stern talkin too, and what happens then?"  
  
Johnny shrugged, trying to swallow another piece of fried egg.  
  
"I fall asleep. That really shows these children discipline on the most important trip of their lives."  
  
Johnny just shrugged again and reached for his cranberry juice.   
  
Audrey finished her apple in silence. "These kids," she said finally. "I don't know what I'm gonna do with them. And that little Seth? Ooh, he's a baddun. I don't know why-Bill and June were always so nice. And their other children-they're good kids. Why's Seth, the one I've gotta look after, gotta be the baddun? Hmm?"  
  
Johnny shrugged yet again. He was wiping his plate clean of the grits. Audrey sighed. Maybe not that nice...  
  
She stood and called out to the children, "Okay, we go to the bus in fifteen minutes. Get your bags and let's vamoose!"  
  
The children and Ralph Carver groaned. This again. Well, at least they were used to hurrying now; they had packed early, before breakfast this time.  
  
Seth Garin poked Mary Jackson in the small of the back.   
  
Mary looked back at him sharply, taking her gaze off her precious Gameboy. "Quit it, you perv."  
  
"No, Mary, I wanted to ask you. Did you hear anything last night? Like a kid talking?"  
  
"Well, actually, I did. And guess which room it was coming from? Yours! So, I should've gone to Ms. Wyler." She turned back to her Gameboy and groaned, seeing she had lost a life while turned around to converse with Seth. "You idiot!" Mary restarted the game. The humming of the bus lulled her back into her regular sullen mood.  
  
After a moment of silence, Seth asked her, "Well, why didn't you?"   
  
Mary carefully paused her game and turned around again. She was startled by what she saw, a scared boy looking for companionship. And this was in his eyes. Seth was a good actor when he needed to be, but not this good. She moved back to sit with him and received a "You sit down, Mary Jackson!" from Ms. Wyler.  
  
"Seth? What's wrong?"  
  
"Just... why didn't you tell?"  
  
Mary was uncomfortable. "Well, I-I guess-I dunno, I fell asleep. You know. It happens."  
  
Seth nodded and became silent.   
  
Mary watched him for a while and then went back to her game. He wasn't that important. Or that cute... did she just think that? Mary blushed and became absorbed in her game. She would never think that again.  
  
"Give it back, I had it fiwst!" It seemed the Carvers were the only people on the bus that had gotten any sleep. Brad Josephson was out like a light, and Cary Ripton was fast following his example. Cynthia Smith, the older teenager, a child of obscure background who'd wanted to be confirmed into the Episcopalian faith, was listening to her Walkman, seemingly well-rested, but with very dark circles under her eyes that no amount of makeup was able to cover up.  
  
"Now David, let your sister play with it. It is her turn you know."  
  
"But Daddy!"  
  
Ralph Carver could not resist his youngest son's puppy-dog eyes, and David knew it and used it to every advantage. "Well... okay, but you have to give it to your sisters in five minutes.  
  
"Daddy! You can't do anything in five minutes! You have to play fow at least ten bazillion!"  
  
Ralph grinned and ruffled his son's hair. "Fine. Ten, then."  
  
David grinned and stuck his tongue out at his sisters. Ellie stuck her tongue back out at him, but Pie just lowered her face. David always won the arguments. It wasn't that he was a bad kid. Most of the time, he was a very lovable brother. However, when something doesn't go his way, he could be a real pain in the-  
  
"Ask me if you need anything," said Ralph before taking his cassette player down and putting the buds in his ears. He put on his hypnosis tapes. A secret ambition, a rather silly one, but one that might eventually come to some use in Ralph's eyes, was to become a pro at self and other hypnosis. He'd read about it one day on the internet and had been hooked ever since.  
  
Pie waited until her father's eyes drifted closed before saying, "David, you shouldn't have done that. You really shouldn't've. It wasn't right-Dad specifically said you could only play for fifteen minutes, and you asked him for more. Haven't you learned anything from Ms. Wyler's talks?"  
  
"I wasn't lissening, they wewe fow you. I didn't have to lissen."  
  
"Yeah?" asked Ellie. "Well, pay more attention next time. You might just learn something important like SHARING for example."  
  
David just shrugged in a very businesslike manner and went on playing his Gameboy.   
  
Belinda Josephson, sitting next to her son, yawned widely and fell off the seat. She got back up in a stupor, muttering, "Oh great, one more thing to show the youth about the black man, now he's clumsy..."  
  
David giggled.  
  
"And respect, too," Ellie continued.   
  
David shrugged again. I think he picked that up from Mr. Marinville, thought Pie.   
  
Speaking of Mr. Marinville, he was sitting, very much awake, in the front of the bus, next to Ms. Audrey Wyler, who had dozed off while listening to her iPod. Johnny could hear the music blaring through the speakers, and recognized it from the University radio show: "Stupid Girl", by Cold. He only remembered one line of lyrics from the song: "I'm a bad one, /I'm a good one,/ I'm a sick one/ With a smile." Not particularly artistic to Johnny, but this coming from a man who had written a book about homosexual rape shouldn't be definitive. For all he knew, it was the most artistic thing ever.   
  
He hummed those lines to himself under his breath, so as not to wake Audrey. As is, of course, she could be awakened with that music of hers blocking out any outside sound. "Dadadaadaa, dadadaadaa, dadadaadaa, dadedaa"  
  
Evidently, it was not too quiet, because the bus driver heard it and said, "Whatcha hummin back there?"  
  
"Just a song," replied Johnny. "Hey-" he paused to look at the sign above the driver's head (Your bus pilot's name is STEVEN AMES), "-Steve, when are we gonna be stoppin off? I gotta piss like a racehorse."  
  
"Yeah, me too," Steve replied. "I think I might be stopping off there," he said, pointing to a sign that said, "Desperation, 4 miles/ Reno, 87 miles."  
  
Johnny wryly said, "Desperation, I hope."  
  
Steve laughed and said, "Yep. That's the place. I think I might have passed it on a tour I made out here some time ago. Nice little place from what I remember. Funny name, huh?"  
  
Johnny made a noncommittal sound in his throat and turned his attention out the front window. Desperation... a strong feeling of dŽjˆ vu swept over him. He chuckled a little to ease his tension and hummed to himself, "Dadadaadaa, dadadaadaa, dadadaadaa, dadedaa..." 


	4. Chapter Three

"What the fuck-Oh, hi Ms. Wyler!" Cary sheepishly exclaimed.  
  
"You need to wake up, Mr. Ripton. We're taking a restroom break. And get her." She pointed at Cynthia Smith, headbanging in the back of the bus.  
  
The sleep fell from Cary's eyes as he watched Ms. Wyler stalk off the bus. "Bitch..." he muttered towards her back through the safety of a window. He rubbed his arm where she had hit him to wake him up. He flexed it experimentally. "Goddamn that hurts like hell!" he yelled to the nearly empty bus. Baseball season was coming up-he couldn't afford to be crippled from his confirmation trip. "Goddammit..." he muttered again.  
  
"Quite a vocab you have there, wee one," said a slightly bemused female voice. Cary looked up to see Cynthia Smith standing above him. "Here, scoot." She pushed him enough to clear a place next to him.  
  
"Weren't you listening to music back there?" he asked.   
  
"Yeah and no. I can hear through the music. Ms. Man-I'm-A-Cunt must think I'm either deaf and blind like the Heller chick or an idiot. Either way, I take offense."  
  
Cary nodded in assent. He thought Ms. Wyler acted like she had one long stick up her ass sometimes, and he told Cynthia that.  
  
She laughed and told him he seemed old for his age and Cary's head swelled to twice its normal size.   
  
Cynthia's nice, he thought. Oh, but not that nice, you know... dammit, I'm acting like a little kid with a crush... He blushed at the thought because of its verity.  
  
"So..." he started.   
  
"We could just stay here. In the bus," said Cynthia. "I really don't think she'll miss us. So, what you readin' there?"  
  
Cary glanced at the book in his lap. "Oh, that's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy." He grinned at the thought of his favorite character, Marvin, the depressed robot. "I'm rereading it, actually. I've read all the sequels, too. I love 'em."  
  
Cynthia grinned along with him. "I might wanna borrow it after you're through. One of my girlfriends told me it was a real hoot."  
  
A real hoot? Cynthia thought. Boy, that was smooth. Wait, why am I trying to be smooth in front of a little kid, anyway? Redness creeped towards her cheeks. Thank god for that makeup.  
  
He offered it to her. "I've read it a thousand times. Actually, it's really one of the only books I've ever been into."  
  
Cynthia reached for it. When grabbing it, their hands brushed and a spark flared between them. "Ouch!" exclaimed Cynthia. She looked at her hands and smiled again.   
  
Cary smiled back. "You know what my mom says? She says that when you shock someone, it's a sign that person is important in your life." He realized what he'd said when Cynthia's smile widened and he blushed redder as he turned away in embarrassment. She reached for his shoulder. He pulled away when she touched it. Her smile faded. She ran a shaky hand through her tu-tone hair.   
  
"You know what?" she asked after an uncomfortable silence.   
  
Cary shrugged in response, his back still towards her.   
  
"I think she's right in this case." She put her hand on Cary's shoulder again. This time, he didn't shrug it away. His face slowly turned and met her lips in midair. Shock flashed in his eyes, followed closely by an overwhelmed ecstasy. Their lips parted. They leaned back in their seats and were quiet.  
  
"So, what were you dreaming about?" asked Cynthia?  
  
"Dreaming about?" breathed Cary, evidently still winded.  
  
"You were moaning and groaning to raise the band." Cynthia chuckled. "Ms. Wyler wasn't too happy."  
  
Cary smiled tiredly. "Then I'll be sure to do it next time I fall asleep too." He turned to face her. She was still looking at the seat ahead of her. Cary sighed. "I can't remember too well. I was... I dunno, I think I was in a... pit of some sort? I dunno. But it was really creepy. All these words I couldn't read on the wall, dead bodies everywhere-but here's the really weird part: the bodies didn't seem to actually be in the... hole. They were all lighted red... dark crimson, sometimes, and others, an almost pink. It was weird. And they were... rippley. Like they were underwater, or behind really old glass or something. And... this guy was telling me stuff. I wasn't really listening-I was... um. I was looking at something else. All that death and I was looking at something else."  
  
"What?" asked Cynthia. Cary turned; she was facing him now, leaned forward on her elbows.   
  
Cary giggled nervously. "I can't remember."  
  
"Boy," Cynthia grinned, "when you lie, you need to loosen up, man. I mean, I would think you're lying if you said the sky was blue!" She leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes. "Like I'd have to check, or something." Her hand ventured out and found Cary's. He closed his eyes. He was content to lay here, Ms. Wyler be damned. He was with his   
  
(graven image)  
  
idol and that was all that mattered.  
  
"Ellie?" Pie grabbed her sister from behind. "Ellie, are you alright?"   
  
"I'm-fine. Fine, Pie." But she didn't look fine. Pie had heard of being green before, but this was ridiculous. Ellie's face was the color Pie had normally associated with olives, and her eyes were bloodshot.  
  
"Ellie, I think we should go to the restroom. Do you need to upchuck?"  
  
Ellie vomited on Pie's feet. "Eeewwww... Ellie, we should get Dad now. Come on."  
  
Ellie feebly shook her head. "No-o. I'm okay. Just needed to get it out," she said in a weak voice.   
  
Pie grabbed her sister's arm. "We're going to tell Dad right now. Come on, Ellie."  
  
Ellie shook her head, but let herself be led along by her sister. After she vomited again, she said, "Aud told me not to get the shrimp. But Dad told me it was okay."  
  
Pie just nodded absently as she looked through the windows on the street, trying to find the shop her father was in. She passed Soderman's Grille and the Billingsley Clinic before finding Reed Curios (why were all the stores in this town named after their owners? Pie thought madly), a wildly out of place stark "curiosity" shoppe in the midst of almost beautiful flowing buildings that seemed to sell little but weapons and cowboy paraphernalia. Ralph Carver was staring at a gaudy plaster cowboy boot in the front window.   
  
Pie ran in, talking her way to her father. "Dad, Ellie threw up and she's really, really sick, you should get her some medicine or something or maybe even take her to have her stomach pumped, it was those darn shrimps, at least that's what she says, Dad, come on, you've got to help her out!"  
  
Ralph blinked. His daughters were indeed still there. Boy, what a buzz. "Well..." he said. He appraised his daughters again. Were there really three... four... five... no, two of them? Oh wait, yes there were. He turned to the man standing behind him. He had on a cowboy hat (Inside! thought Pie. Inside!) and a plaid flannel shirt with tight dark blue jeans on. And, of course, he was wearing cowboy boots. His tight jaw worked. "You gonna hepp these little girls out, sir?" His nametag said "Dave."  
  
Ralph looked at the two men. "I want some of that."  
  
"Dave" looked at the girls that had just come in. "Sir, Ah appreciate yer patronage, but ye need ta help ur own daughters before buyin' booze."  
  
Ralph blinked again. His vision cleared enough for him to flick off the man in the middle and he passed out.  
  
Audrey Wyler was sitting in a McDonalds with most of the other children. She was paying special attention to Seth and Mary. They seem up to something... she mused.  
  
She slowly became aware of David Carver at her feet. "Is my fam'ly all wight?" he asked.   
  
Audrey chuckled a little nervously. The way he'd said that... "Why wouldn't they be?"  
  
David looked up at her with his huge eyes. "I was pwaying, like you said to. And then I saw Daddy... but he was dead."  
  
Audrey closed her eyes. Oh boy, separation anxiety. "Listen, you're daddy's okay." He kept her in his gaze. "David, how did you know he was dead? Maybe he was just sleeping."  
  
David shook his head. "No... there was blood. A lot, and I couldn't see his face. It was scawy."  
  
Audrey shivered and suddenly felt sorry for a boy kept in an environment such that would foster that kind of image. "Baby, it was just your imagination. You were just thinking about it."  
  
David thought about it. "Maybe, " he said and stalked off to play in the ball pit.   
  
Audrey shivered again. That was just downright creepy, that.  
  
"And you had exactly the same dream?" Mary was asking.  
  
Seth nodded. "It was pretty scary... but I can't think of why right now. The red light was what got me... I dunno why."  
  
Mary nodded. "Me too." She looked around at the other tables. Except for Brad and his mom, the tables were completely empty. There were no locals at the McDonalds. Okay, I can see that, thought Mary, But where were these people?  
  
She spoke her thoughts to Seth. He also nodded in agreement. "I don't like this place. It's way too quiet... and it seems like it's hiding something. Like this one time, I was eating a peach, and I took a bite out of it, right? There was a spider just beyond where my bite ended. It had evidently gotten stuck in there... maybe as an egg. And it was a black widow, too." He wasn't sure if this last part was true, but it seemed to him his story needed some pizzazz to show his point. "That was like this town. Calm and sweet on the outside, deadly and stark and bitter on the inside." He shivered at this true memory.   
  
Mary took his hand. A spark passed between them; if the lights had been off, they would have noticed its distinctive red color, but right now, they both said in unison, "Ouch, you shocked me!" They broke into giggles then, but even to them, they sounded like the laughs of the doomed right before the platform drops out below him and the rope pulls taut. 


	5. Chapter Four

"Goddammit Carver, she's sick as a motherfucking dog and you did nothing about it!" Johnny shrieked. Audrey had rushed Ellie to the bus to get her to the nearby hospital (just a little too far to walk to). "Not a goddamned thing!"  
  
Ralph looked shockingly like his daughter did earlier. He gulped and looked at the people surrounding him. There was the man from the shop ("Dave"), Belinda, and of course Johnny. "Wass I suppossa do boutit?" he slurred angrily.   
  
"Not get drunk for one thing," spat Belinda Josephson. "Settin a bad example for the chillrun, and makin a general messa things. And you," she turned on Dave, "who the hell are you? Why were you sellin this man likker and why in God's good name did you not help the little girls?!"  
  
Dave was flustered. "Well, marm, Ah tried to make Mr. Carver here respond to his little girls, hepp 'em and anythin else they needed, but he was stone drunk. And Ah acshully di'n't give 'im that likker to begin with. He found it evidently bah himself."  
  
Johnny stepped back and fell heavily onto one of the benches outside Reed's Curios. He rubbed his temples in a circular motion, and, when this didn't help his raging headache, he stood back up rapidly to confront its source. "You are a goddamn sonuvabitch that can't even stay sober on a church trip!" he shouted at Ralph. He felt a little tugging on the back of the jeans he was wearing and turned.  
  
"Whass wong with my daddy?" David asked. Unsupervised, he'd walked down the street to them by himself. "Is my daddy dead?"  
  
Johnny melted at the sight of the child, and the thought of what he must live through.   
  
"No, David, Daddy's not dad-not dead that is. Daddy," he looked back at Ralph, "is just in a bitchload of trouble."  
  
Belinda began to admonish him for using vulgarity in front of such a little child when David asked in a very grownup, exasperated way, "What kind of trouble now?"  
  
"Now!?" Johnny spun back to Ralph and reared back as to punch him. Dave Reed grabbed his wiry arm and pulled him into the shop.  
  
The shop was pleasantly cool, although the merchandise seemed entirely geared towards faux western pieces, such as bright papier-mache pots and plastic cowskulls.  
  
"Sir, I should tell you, he was asking to see our merchandise."  
  
Johnny was stunned that this was what the man had pulled him away for. "So?"  
  
Dave backed up a bit as if expecting a blow. "Sir, do you know what our merchandise is?"  
  
Johnny looked around. "This?"  
  
Dave was visibly relieved. "Thank you sir. Thank you very much." He walked off through a curtain in the back of the store.   
  
"What the hell..." Johnny asked the empty room.  
  
Audrey had Ellie in her arms by now. Ellie had gone to sleep there (God knows how, Audrey thought) and was shivering intensely. The bus was in sight, just beyond the far corner of the McDonalds the remainder of the trip was "resting" in.   
  
Audrey got to the bus and rapped on the door; maybe the driver would still be in there instead of exploring the town. No answer. She rapped again, more sharply. Something stirred in one of the back windows of the bus and Audrey thought, Great, now he's taking a nap.  
  
The stir became more agitated and there was movement towards the front of the bus. There was a young voice yelling something about the door and another answered. Those kids... Ripton and Smith, Audrey deduced. She didn't want to know what they'd been up to.  
  
When Cary opened the door, he was out of breath. It was something alright, thought Audrey.   
  
"Oh hi, Ms. Wyler. Is-" his tone became more serious, "God, is there something wrong with Pie?"  
  
Audrey pushed her way in. "Ellie, can't you tell them apart," she breathed. "Okay, where the heck is the bus driver?"  
  
"I think Steve is out walking the streets. You know, just stretching his legs or something like that." This also from Cary.  
  
"Darnit, does anyone know exactly where he is?"  
  
Cynthia this time: "I don't know."  
  
"Oh thanks, Ms. Smith. Does anyone else?"  
  
"I wouldn't know, would I?" Cynthia's tone was not particularly sharp, but Audrey reacted anyway.  
  
"Don't you take a tone with me, missy, or you can just get ou--"  
  
Cary hit Audrey. "Et tu, Mr. Ripton? I can throw you out to hitchhike back home, I can and-"  
  
"Ms. Wyler, I'm sorry, but Ellie looks really bad."  
  
He was right. Her eyelids had parted, but showed only whites.   
  
"Okay, okay, um, okay, does anyone know how to drive a bus?"  
  
Cary looked at her as if she'd just asked if anyone there had two noses. But Cynthia just said, "Yep."  
  
Cary stared, mouth agape, at Cynthia. She simply walked by him to the front of the bus, patting him on the shoulder as she went. Cynthia sat down, started up the bus, then turned to Ms. Wyler. "You know this is technically stealing, right?"  
  
Audrey only shook her head and said, "We need to get her to the hospital. Now, missy!"  
  
Cynthia pulled out of the parking lot and onto the streets. "Do you know where it is?" she yelled over the engine.   
  
"Got the directions from a local!" Audrey shouted back.  
  
Cary was almost thrown back into his seat when Cynthia accelerated. He sat down and hung onto the armrest, his knuckles white.  
  
"Here we go!" Cynthia exclaimed.  
  
Steven Ames stood outside You Sew and Sew, a sewing shop. He knew the owner, Debbie Ross. In fact, he knew her very well.  
  
Debbie Ross had been Debbie Ames for five what Steven would call wonderful years. They'd gotten a divorce because Debbie felt the need to see other people. That was when he'd moved to Franklin, Tennessee. She'd sold their house and moved out west. Neither of them had been to Castle Rock, Maine since.  
  
Debbie had always enjoyed sewing. Steven remembered her annual needlepoint creations at Christmas. He still had one of them, and had even gotten it turned into a stocking. It depicted an angel with spread wings, hovering over a nativity scene. The rest of the needlepoint works had been destroyed when that fire started in his storage room a few months ago.  
  
Steven considered walking straight in. What would he say? He hadn't even seen her for three years, and had gotten one card the entire time: a Christmas card the first year. And now, here she was, in business for herself. And what was he? A crappy bus driver. How would he explain that to Debbie after so many years of supremacy?  
  
He decided to go in. What would happen if she found out he'd been in town, right outside her door, and not visited her? They should be keeping in touch. It wasn't right  
  
(fair, it wasn't fair)  
  
that they'd not seen each other for so long. Their marriage had been a happy one.   
  
Hadn't it?  
  
That was the clincher. There was no way Steven was going to just let their post-marital relationship fall apart.  
  
He pushed open the glass door and strode in, heedless of the entrance bell tinkling behind him. The room was empty.   
  
"Debbie! It's me, Steven!" Smooth, he thought cynically. "I wanna see ya! How's life been?"  
  
The room stayed silent. "Debbie?" he asked, more timidly.  
  
He crept past the register in the back and peered into the backroom. "Oh my god..." 


End file.
